


It's Only Forever

by pallysuune



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Multi, Reverse ending, Romance, gender neutral reader, magical craziness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-27 10:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21390799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallysuune/pseuds/pallysuune
Summary: Spoilers for various Reverse Endings.Asra and I have it good in our own little world. Just the two of us and Faust. Except... that's not the way it's always been, is it? That's not the way it's supposed to be. When I find myself suddenly remembering the people we left behind, our own little world doesn't seem so great anymore.Asra says all magic can be undone. But, as we set out to get back to the real world, I'm not sure what we'll find. Or what it will take to fix things. All I know is we have to try.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based around both Asra and Julian's reverse endings. There will be a lot of spoilers, but since I haven't finished Nadia's route, and the others aren't finished, not everything will gel with theirs. Just a fair warning.
> 
> Please enjoy!

I stretched out across the warm bed, languid and easy, turning my head to look out the window. It was early and already it seemed like it was going to be a hot day out. Maybe I’d be able to convince Asra to just stay inside and relax with me. Although, when I rolled over, I found he was already gone, the bed beside me was empty - 

_~I was used to waking up in an empty bed when he went traveling, but he always came home eventually. And as much as I hated it when he went away, at least I was happy that he trusted me with looking after the shop. _

Wait, what? Shop? I had no idea where the thought, some nostalgic thing not quite a memory but similar, had come from. There was no shop. There was just me, Asra, and Faust in the little desert house with all of Asra’s plants and things. What** shop **had he trusted me with? I tried to remember, but it just wasn’t coming to me. It was there, right on the tip of my tongue, but just out of reach all the same. 

Frustrated, I flopped onto my back, only to see Faust draping over the edge of the shelf above me, looking down at me with her head cocked curiously, like she was waiting for something. Probably for me to wake up. What else would she be waiting for? So I forced away the lingering feeling of something being off and smiled to her, sitting up. “Come on, Faust, let’s go find Asra and give him a piece of our mind for leaving bed without us,” I grinned, holding a hand out for her. She slid up around my arm, curling so her head was up on my shoulder as I climbed up out of bed.

It took a little while as I stretched and dressed and grabbed a quick cup of tea, but when I came out of the house, I found Asra in the garden, as I expected him to be. For a moment, I just stood there, smiling fondly as I watched. He was sitting on his knees in the sand, bent down, doing something I couldn’t see with his back to me. The shimmering, shifting light of the day played over his plain shirt and his messy hair, and I could just hear snatches of him humming. His voice was soft and easy as always, unconcerned and content. I loved seeing him happy like this. He deserved it, after everything. 

Wait. After what? I loved seeing Asra happy after everything he’d been through, but when I thought about it, I couldn’t actually remember what he’d been through. How could anything bad have happened to him when it had always just been the three of us there in the desert. Nothing bad ever happened in the desert. And, well, the singing canyon wasn’t exactly a horrific place, either, so where was that feeling coming from?

_~Asra was standing in front of me, holding my hand like it was a lifeline. Tears welled in his eyes, clinging to his lashes before spilling over to run down his face. “I went looking and this is where I found you.” He knelt in greyish sand, tugging me down with him, his free hand raking through. “I dug until my fingers bled. All I could find was charred bone and ash. All that was left of you.” His voice cracked and he dissolved into wracking sobs and gasping breaths. _

I blinked, and I was standing in the garden again, watching Asra on his knees humming softly. What was that? It seemed so** real **but I knew nothing like that could have happened there, or in the canyon, or anywhere else around there. There were no islands anywhere that I could think of. But why did it seem so real. The pain in Asra’s face, the sobs. Something had happened. Something I couldn’t remember. But if I couldn’t remember something that important, what else could I have forgotten? 

Was it possible… there really was a shop? Was it possible there was more?

Asra had moved over to a few of the bushes, beginning to prune them back with a pair of shears called magically to his hand. He glanced back over his shoulder as he settled again, noticing me. A smile lit up his face. “Good morning. What do you think of the hydrangea?” He’d already returned to his work before even noticing that something was bothering me. 

“They’re beautiful,” I answered, my voice a little absent as I continued to try to figure out what was wrong with my memories. They were, too. I glanced over at the riot of colors that was the flowers. Pink, blue, purple, white, yellow, and green clusters of blooms as big as my fist dotted all over the violet plant. I had the sudden thought that it shouldn’t be able to grow in a desert, even with all of Asra’s magic. 

He may have missed the look on my face earlier, but he didn’t miss the tone of my voice, and Asra set down his shears, scooting to look back at me. “Is everything alright?”

For a long moment, I didn’t answer, frowning as I ran my fingers over the petal of a hydrangea bloom. Faust was still curled around my shoulders, but she was looking at me intently, the tip of her tail lashing against my back. “Asra… have we ever been to an island?” 

“An island?” His brows furrowed, his whole face scrunching up in confusion and thought for a moment before he shook his head. “There aren’t any around here. There’s not a lot of water in the desert, you know.” 

“Yeah, I know…” I gnawed on my bottom lip, thoughtfully, uncertainly, as I came over toward him. The scent of the garden was all around us. A citrusy smell coming from some berries dotting a dark green bush, flowery scents from the hydrangea and others, and… something else. Something deep and earthy and… familiar. 

“Is that… myrrh?” I frowned even deeper, looking at the bushes that he’d been pruning. Asra hummed an affirmative noise as he turned back to his work. There was the nagging feeling at the back of my mind that myrrh was important. It was something I should remember. 

_~The man loomed over me as I reached for the little bear on the shelf. “Don’t touch that.” For a second, all I could do was stare. Even slouching, he was taller than anyone I’d met, broad with an intense amount of muscles, and wearing only a pair of pants and a pelt wrapped around himself, a hood drawn up over his head. Black hair fell into his eyes, and there was a heavy collar around his throat, the thick, broken chain of it hanging on his chest. The glare he gave me was downright withering. _

_~I opened my eyes to the sight of both Asra and the huge man standing there, watching me. Asra smiled, though the other looked concerned, from what little I could see of his features. He peeked at me from behind his hair, frowning, but it wasn’t anything like the look he’d given me in his hut. _

_~ “We’re out of time.” Me, Asra, and the mountain of a man were standing in a garden when he held out his hand, showing us a protective charm made of grass, twigs, and twine. Even as I watched, it began to unravel into smoke. _

_~ The table was set with twenty-two chairs and ladened with tons of decadent looking food, even if it made my stomach turn. Everyone was dressed finely and masked. My eyes locked with the man’s from where he sat, his face hidden behind a hand-carved wooden mask that resembled a bear. Even with it on, I could see his eyes were wide, shock and fear reflecting back at me, a dread I felt echoing in the pit of my stomach. _

“Muriel!” 

Asra paused at the sound of my gasp, twisting to give me a confused look. He murmured my name questioning. 

“How could we have forgotten Muriel?” I went on like I hadn’t heard him. My eyes were unfocused, lost in things far beyond the desert garden. “After everything he helped us with. And- And your parents! Asra, how could we forget your parents? And Nadia, and Julian, and Portia, and-” 

I stopped suddenly, going very, very still, my heart feeling like it had stopped in my chest. My voice barely came out as a whisper. “And the Devil.” 

I turned toward Asra, my eyes wide as I met his again. He seemed confused for a second longer but I could **see **the realization dawn in his eyes. He went still, his own expression shifting slowly to reflect the shock I felt. “The ritual. We made a deal with the Devil…”

We both felt a rush of happiness and pride from Faust, like she’d been waiting for us to remember. She tightened around my shoulders in a squeezing hug, but it wasn’t enough to stave off my next thought.

Anger bloomed in my chest, flushing through me in a rush of heat. “And he made us forget everything so we couldn’t do anything to stop him!” I threw my arm out to encompass the garden and the house, the singing canyon in the distance, and everything else around us. “All of this is just a trick to keep us complacent.” 

Asra looked down at his hands, expression stricken. “There was a pool, remember? We heard voices from it, but we didn’t recognize them. It was… It was my parents, wasn’t it? And Muriel. And we didn’t recognize them, and I… I got rid of the pool so they couldn’t speak anymore.” His whole bearing reflected the horror on his face as he realized that he himself had destroyed the last means of communication his parents had, foiling their attempts to reach us both. 

I dropped to my knees in the sand and reached for him, wrapping him in my arms and drawing him against my chest. Faust slid from my shoulders to wrap around us both. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known, not with this trick.” I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm to counter the emotions I could still feel reeling through him. “What we need to do now is figure out what to do now that we remember.”

It took him a second, but he straightened. Beneath my arms, a deep breath expanded his chest as he calmed, and a moment later he was drawing away from me. “You’re right. We need to find out what happened in our world first and then…” He shook his head slightly. We both knew what the Devil had planned - to merge the mortal world with the one of the Arcana. I could only imagine what the result of that was. The look on Asra’s face reflected the same uncertainty I felt thinking about that, but he tried to smile, weak though it was, as he went on. “But all magic, even something this strong, can be undone. We just have to figure out how.” 

Probably another impossibly difficult ritual, but was something we could figure out after we got back to the real world. That was going to be easier said than done, I was sure. This may have been Asra’s realm, but there was no telling if there was a way to get back. Especially since, when this was an oasis, we’d always used the pools to get through as gateways, and all of the pools had dried up as far as the eye could see. 

As if he was thinking the same thing, Asra looked around the garden a little mournfully. Doubtless, there was some part of him that wouldn’t mind staying there, happy and safe with me. And, if I were being honest, there was a part of me that wanted that too. That just wanted to be with him. But I knew we couldn’t. There were other people we loved and cared for back in the real world, and who knew what was happening to them. I didn’t know how I’d be able to live with myself if I just abandoned them again, especially on purpose this time. Asra seemed to be on the same page as me, as he finally heaved a sigh and stood up. “It looks like we’ve got some traveling to do.” With a small smile, he offered me his hand. 

I took it and let him pull me to my feet before twining my fingers with his gently. Faust slid down my arm to wrap about the both of us, curling around my wrist and around Asra’s. Whatever happened next, we would do it together, and that was a comfort in itself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you can't find a gate, you make one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm giving serious thought to the development of relationships in this, and the possibility of it developing into an eventual Asra/Apprentice/Julian thing. Because I love healthy poly ships, and I love my birb-man. 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts on the possibility?

Though this had become a bit of a prison for the two of us, there was one thing that was still true about Asra’s gate - it was where his magic was strongest. And, through the connection we shared, it meant that mine was stronger there, too. So, traveling wasn’t as much of a problem as it would have been back in the real world. With our hands clasped together, Asra and I took off, soaring through the shifting sky in long, lazy bounds. A part of me would always love this place, how much like Asra it was. There was color everywhere, even if the old oasis was gone now. Everything was glowing and glittering and shifting constantly, a kaleidoscope of colors that probably _should_ have been disjointing, but really just came off as beautiful and bright. A tiny touch childish maybe, but even that had it’s charm. 

It was a_ safe _place, too. That was part of the deal with the Devil. Asra’s gate was safe for the three of us. There was no danger in soaring through it like this. Which was probably a good thing, since both Asra and I were too focused on attempting to find anything that might remain of the hundreds of glittering pools of water that had once dotted the landscape to pay any mind to any possible danger. 

After a buoyant jump and drift back down, I felt my feet hit the ground, feather light and gentle. Asra landed beside me. He huffed out a sigh, puffing pale curls from his face as he turned troubled eyes to me. “I don’t see anything left of the oasis.” 

No matter how much I wished I could reassure him, I just had to shake my head back. “I haven’t either.” 

Asra sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. Faust curled up on his shoulders and gave a squeezing hug. He raised a hand to her, stroking his fingers gently along her scales. I had the impression she said something to him, even if I didn't hear. He raised his head, looking around with a frown. "That's a good point. Maybe we don't have to find one. Maybe we can make one."

It sounded good in theory. He'd made everything here once, after all. He might be able to affect it. Still, a frown pulled at my lips as I glanced around. Who knew how much pull the Devil had on this little sliver of magic world? Was it possible he could keep us locked up in here like he had Salim and Aisha? 

I realized I hadn’t answered when I glanced over and saw Asra looking expectantly at me. He frowned, concern clouding his features, as he murmured my name. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair and glancing around uneasily. “How do we know he doesn’t have us locked away in here?”

“Even if he does, it’s not going to do much.” The smirk that curled Asra’s lips took me off guard, and he squeezed my hand gently. “Most of his magic doesn’t work on you any longer, remember? You’ve seen a few of his tricks already,right? Those chains of his are out, and I don’t think he knows your magic is unique, so he won’t be thinking to come up with something new.” 

It was truly, honestly great to see that spark of triumph in his eyes again, that glint of mischief and fight that I knew so well. It made it feel like we might actually be able to do this, that we might be able to escape. And even if escaping was only the first step, it was a_ big_ step, and Asra made me feel like we could do it. 

That, along with the fact that he wasn’t running away again made me think that this time might be different. 

I smiled, stepping closer to him to press my forehead against his, my eyes closing. My hand rested on his chest, feeling his heart beating in time with mine. Steadying. Comforting. Slowly, I nodded and drew back to smile back up at him. “And even if it’s something new, I only need to see it once. Eventually, we’ll find a way around it.” 

He gave me a brilliant smile and nodded. “Exactly.” 

With that, Asra took both of my hands, pressing a quick kiss to each of my knuckles, and drew me over to a blank stretch of sand. We sat down together, facing each other, and he kept hold of my hands. “Alright. We’re going to try to make a new gate. Do you remember the time we turned sand into water, in Nopal?” 

“No. I remember when _you_ turned sand into water,” I huffed, but the corner of my lips lifted in a smile, and Asra chuckled softly at me, and then went on as if I hadn’t said anything. 

“We’re going to start like that. By making an oasis for ourselves. Then we’ll link it to somewhere in the real world, alright? Now, close your eyes. Think of water. Imagine it gathering around you, soaking into your clothes, and running over your skin.” I did as he told me, closing my eyes, and trying to gather everything I could think of about water. How it felt on my skin, how it smelled, how it tasted. I imagined it seeping up through the sand, pooling around us. I felt my magic rush and grow in time with Asra’s, mixing and meshing together in the most incredible kind of way. I’d never get enough of that. Every time we cast together, it was amazing. 

I don’t know if I was just getting better at water magic, or if Asra was building the spell and just guiding my magic to power it, but I did actually begin to feel the chill of water as it soaked into my pants. I thought it was all in my head at first, but as it grew higher, flowing up along my thighs, I realized it was really there, it was really happening. If nothing else, it proved that we still had control over this world. We weren’t helpless against what was happening. That alone was heartening enough. 

At length, Asra’s thumb stroked across my knuckles and I finally opened my eyes, glancing around. All around us, the crystal clear water of a new pool reflected the deep jewel toned hues of the sky. It went about to my waist, and was as still as it was cold. It was perfect. My eyes lit up, a grin spreading across my face as I stared at it, twisting as much as I could without actually releasing Asra’s hands. 

He drew my attention back to him, squeezing my hands and murmuring my name in that gentle way of his, reminding me we weren’t done yet. 

“It’s going to be more difficult than the times we’ve crossed over before. We need to make the gate capable of transferring our physical bodies, too.” It was a lot more advanced than just the things we’d done before, and I’d never actually done something like this myself. The times I’d been in this realm with my physical body, I’d been sent there by someone else. I nodded to show him I understood, and he went on. “It will be easiest to focus on someplace we both know well.”

“The shop,” I said immediately. 

He considered it for a second, and then nodded slowly. “Do you remember the small well behind the shop?” I thought about it, calling to mind the image of the little circle of carved stones that sat in the corner of our small garden. It tapped into the fresh water that came from the palace aqueducts. I remembered sunny afternoons when Asra would draw from the well to water the plants. Or early mornings when I would go out to get water to boil for tea, half asleep and still shuffling my feet all the way down to it. 

Asra’s magic was like water itself, it flowed and shimmered, and it worked best with water too. I could understand why he’d want to use the well for a gate instead of something else in the shop. And, well, as strong as my magic had become, Asra still knew more than me, so it was best to let him lead. I focused on the well, holding the image of it in my mind and stitching it together with the image of the oasis, back to back, like mirror images of each other. My magic tingled and flushed, flowing out and through the water all around us. I was starting to feel a little light headed, a little giddy. 

And then, it was like the sand was gone, and I was plunged into water. It closed over my head, cold and close. Claustrophobic. I realized immediately it wasn’t like the times when I’d been underwater in the magic world, when I didn’t need to breathe, or could breathe regardless of the liquid. My lungs burned, and no amount of will could convince them they weren’t starving for oxygen, unprepared for the drop into water. Asra’s hand was still in mine, one of them. He’d let go of the other, and I could feel movement from him.A powerful kick of his legs as he swam upward. 

It felt a little like deja vu. 

He pulled me up with him, up through water that was so much more real than anything I’d felt in ages. Real in a terrifying way. We surfaced, gasping, sputtering, and coughing. I groped for anything to hold on to with my free hand, feeling smooth stone all around. My hand flopped up higher, finally catching the edge of the stone, and I hauled myself up. Asra let go of me, but he was right by my side, doing the same. 

Pulling myself up onto the edge of the well, I glanced back into the water behind us, gulping down deep breaths of air. A rush of triumph washed over me, mixing with adrenaline and leaving me giddy. I began to giggle, and even I could hear it was on the edge of hysterics. Wet arms wrapped around me and Asra pulled me close. Faust’s cold nose shoved against my neck. 

“We did it,” I gasped, and giggled again. “We did it!” 

Asra giggled too, soft and breathless, laying his head on top of mine. He was the first of us to stop, though. The first to raise his head. I felt him tense beside me, going very, very still. “Oh gods.” 

Confused, I lifted my head and got my first sight of the chaos our world had become.


	3. Chapter 3

The well we sat on looked roughly the same that it always had, but that was about the only thing that still looked the same. Instead of the familiar garden and shop, what spread out in front of us was a forest. It wasn’t cold, but everything was heavy with snow that was still falling in delicate little puffs, the branches of the trees overhead moved and swayed even though there was no breeze. It was more than slightly unsettling. 

“Where are we?” I asked, drawing my legs up onto the stone edge of the well. 

Asra glanced about, wide eyed, and then shook his head. “The shop. Look.” 

As he lifted his hand to point, I followed the motion. There, up in the trunk of one of the trees, was the familiar square window of our bedroom, even with a familiar book sitting on the edge of it. I didn’t see anything behind it, but an empty space, like it was still the window of an open room, instead of being against the side of a tree. When I took another look through the trees, I saw other things. One of Asra’s scarves draped over a branch. A teacup dangled from a knot on a trunk just like how it had hung on a hook in the kitchen. I just stared, gawking. 

This… this dense forest. It was our shop. 

“How long have we been gone?” I whispered. 

“It’s impossible to say,” Asra answered, brows knit in a worried frown as he stared at the forest. I knew what he was thinking about. He was wondering the same question and thinking about his parents and Muriel. Was it possible we were too late? 

Slowly, I stepped down from the well, my sandals sinking into the snow beneath me, and I paused again, looking down at it. It wasn’t cold. If anything, it felt a touch warm. I shot a quick glance at my love before leaning down to touch it, finding it powdery and chalky against my fingers. My stomach dropped. 

“What is it?” Asra must have seen something in my face to tell him something was wrong, and I raised my head to look at him. 

“It’s not snow. It’s ashes.” 

We both looked up. Sure enough, the white puffs were still falling from the sky, from heavy reddish-grey clouds above. It wasn’t that the ashes were drifting to us from some forest fire or anything like that. It was literally_ snowing_ ashes. I didn't know what else to say about it, staring around uneasily as the ashes began to build up around my sandals. 

Asra stepped carefully down from the edge of the well, reaching for my hand, as if he was scared we might get separated. Which, I guess it wasn't an unreasonable fear. Our fingers twined together and I squeezed him gently, earning a hesitant smile.

"Where do we even start?" he wondered.

“I guess by just… going,” I answered, frowning slightly. There didn’t seem to be many other options for us. We could either keep going or we could sink back into the well, but we both knew that wasn’t an option. Faust ducked beneath Asra’s coat, tucking herself beneath the colllar of his shirt, as uneasy with the rest of the place as we were. 

Carefully, we set off through the forest that was once our shop. Everywhere around us, the trees twisted and turned. The remains of the city’s canals could be seen between them and, every once in a while, I caught sight of something that looked familiar. From the corner of my eye, I could see the palace, shimmering like glass, but whenever I turned to look at it, it remained there in my peripheral, like it was turning with me. It was disorienting, and I was so glad for Asra’s hand in mind. It was the only grounding thing in the world around us. Everything else felt so… surreal, and I honestly was starting to miss the little realm of magic we’d been hiding in. 

“Is that a door?” 

I blinked, looking to where he was looking and, sure enough, there was a door. It was leaning haphazardly against the edge of an eroded canal wall on an angle that would suggest there was nothing behind it. But it was the first door we’d seen the entire time we’d been there, and it was worth looking at. We seemed to be thinking the same as, after exchanging a look, Asra led me over to it. He examined the door, crouching down in the ash to look under it, and circling around it. It was just a simple wooden door with a plain brass knob. At last, Asra straightened, glanced at me, and then reached for the knob. It turned easily under his hand, and the door swung inward. 

Even knowing how surreal everything was, I was still expecting the door to only open a little ways before being wedged against the ground. Instead, it swung fully open. There wasn’t the ground on the other side either, but a long hallway, lined with mirrors, and stretching away from us at the same angle of the door. 

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that,” I muttered, frowning. I heard the huff of a laugh from my love, and he tried to offer me a smile as he took my hand again. 

“It’s better than here, though. Let’s check it out.” 

He stepped through first, and I followed quickly. There was a weird bit of vertigo as the ground shifted. It wasn’t quite like falling, because we never fell, so much as we shifted, the plane of gravity shifting with the pitch of the floor. It was awkward to say the least. When I glanced back out the open door, I just saw the tops of trees and puffy white ashes falling from the sky. Ahead, was just the hallway. 

It reminded me of Lucio’s wing of the palace, except the walls and ceiling were all lined in mirrors, each one cut at odd angles and pressed together to form one long, almost unbroken stretch. In each one, the reflections of the others stretched back into infinity, now including repetitions of Asra an I among the panes of glass. Other than that, though, it seemed… oddly normal. 

We started walking slowly. I peered into the mirrors as we did. It was dizzying and insane, and I couldn’t be sure but I thought I saw more than just the two of us in the depths of the mirror. I wrote it off as being my imagination until I heard Asra gasp my name and spun quickly to look at the mirror beside him on the other side of the hall, just in time to see the flick of black feathers disappearing behind a crack in the mirror. 

“What was that?” I whispered, leaning close to Asra uneasily. 

He shook his head slowly, frowning. “I don’t know. It looked like -” He shook his head again, cutting himself off and turning his eyes forward determinedly. “Let’s keep going.” 

I saw it too, before long: a tall, lanky form covered in dark feathers in the depths of the mirror, always moving away from us. I saw more than that too. The wag of a tail that looked like Inanna’s. The waving of a scarf that could have been Aisha’s. Once, in one repeat imagine beside me, I saw Salim’s glasses sitting on the ground, cracked and broken, and not reflected in any of the images behind it. There were weird things about us, too. Or, rather, about our images. Sometimes they didn’t move with us. Sometimes they stayed still and watched us, or peeked from behind cracks. Once, I caught one of the other Asra’s reaching for me, but he didn’t manage to before we were past him. It was quickly becoming far more terrifying than the woods we’d been in before

In front of us, our own reflection began to grow larger as we reached the end of the hall and realized there was no door. Just another large mirror. I took a breath and reached out to it, laying my hand on the cold glass. It swung open, like a door. Beyond that was a swamp, with deep red water and what looked like mangrove trees made of stone rising up out of it. I really worried that the swamp was blood, but, thankfully, when I stepped out into it, it felt just like actual water, even if it was a little cold. With a relieved sigh, I looked back to Asra and motioned for him to follow. 

He did, stepping out and taking my hand. Our fingers woven together again, we both headed out again, not walking so much as sloshing through the knee deep liquid. 

It was impossible to tell how long we were walking. Nothing ever seemed to change there. Not substantially, at least. At times, I thought I saw something in the water, something long and sinuous sweeping by, like a big eel or snake, but it never came too close to us. Not yet, at least. I couldn’t say how long we’d been at it when I saw a lamp post sitting between the roots of a tree. Beside it sat another impossible door, like the one we’d seen near the canal however-long ago. I nudged Asra gently, and when his attention turned to me, I pointed toward it. At the moment, anything seemed better than the cold wetness of the swamp, so we both headed over to it. 

This door looked pretty normal, too, and there was a sign hanging over it, the letters shifting and changing almost obsessively. I frowned slightly as I looked up at it, trying to make anything of it as Asra reached over to try the door knob. Once again, it wasn’t locked, so he pushed it open and we both stepped inside, thankful to be out of the water. But the insanity just continued as I got my first look at the room we stepped into. 

It looked like a run down tavern, though the walls were covered in broken mirrors. Shattered glass was strewn across the floor, and more than a few of the tables and chairs were broken. At an unbroken one was the large, slumped figure of _something _covered in black feathers. Beside them was a towering pile of empty tankards, and as we watched, a floating bottle filled another tankard set on the table in front of the person. An accordion played itself in the corner, discordant and jangling, and I really wanted to break it for the mockery of music it was making. 

The door shut loudly behind us. I twisted to look at it, but Asra’s eyes hadn’t left the figure at the table. The person didn’t move, even at the sudden sound of the door, but after a second, they spoke. “Well, well, come in for a drink?”

I froze, then slowly turned back to stare, wide eyed, at the mass of black feathers. The voice was raspy, but it was familiar. Asra shot me a horrified look, and I could feel the anxious squeeze of his heart echoing in mine. His voice was barely a whisper.  
_  
“Ilya?”_


End file.
